Weekly Round Up: Lando, Twitch, Blomkamp

16th July 2018

I’ll be honest, ever since Disney announced their new Star Wars trilogy I have been wondering if we’d see the return of Lando Calrissian. As much as I love Donald Glover, he’s no Billy Dee Williams. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll be happy to learn that this week saw Disney announce that Billy Dee Williams is officially returning to the franchise as Lando in the JJ Abrams directed Episode IX, which is scheduled for release on the 20^th of December, 2019.

It’s open for debate how much of a role Lando will play in what is the finale part of this new trilogy of films, but it’s a safe bet to assume he’ll be taking up the role that the late Carrie Fisher’s iconic Leia Organa would have played, and it’s likely he’ll appear to pay his respects to the character in this film. Of course, this is all just rumour and speculation at the moment, but it’s fun isn’t it?

Meanwhile, everyone’s favourite superhero… Hawkeye(?) is ditching Marvel for Spawn. No, the character is not hopping movie universes, but instead Jeremy Renner, the movie star there never was, has signed on to play the role of Detective Twitch Williams, a character who didn’t appear in the original Spawn movie from 1997 but is a regular part of the comics from which this new movie is based. Renner will be joining Jamie Foxx, who is attached at the titular hero.

So, who’s excited about Spawn, guys? Anyone…? Anyone…? Bueller…?

And while we’re on the subject of super weird comic book movies nobody really asked for but are starting to sound more and more interesting by the day (good segue way, huh?), the Joaquin Pheonix Joker solo-movie has been scheduled to start filming in the Autum. The film has been given a relatively low budget of $55million (which isn’t really low-budget to anyone who isn’t Mr Burns…) and won’t feature any connective tissue with the wider DCEU, which, I suppose, does mean it at least has the chance of being good…

It’s rumoured the film will be an origin story, which, considering the characters mystique and the numerous origins stories he has been given throughout the years, does suggest that this film have something to add to the Joker mythos. But none the less, it’s a strange time we live in where there are extended universes the feature the same characters but aren’t in continuity with each other. Maybe Hawkeye might be in Spawn after all?

Chadwick Boseman, none other than the mighty T’Challa himself, has recently signed to star in an action thriller titled 17 Bridges, in which he will play a “disgraced NYPD Detective” who gets the opportunity for redemption during a citywide manhunt for a killer. And while that certainly sounds like an interesting idea for a movie, and I like Chadwick Boseman, I really do, I can’t help but feel like this is the type of movie I’d have been super pumped for in the 90s. Still, I’ll reserve judgement, Black Panther was awesome, and I’ll fight you if you say otherwise.

Speaking of Black Panther stars, Danai Gurira, who played Okoye in the movie, has just landed one of the lead roles in 2020’s monster mash-up Godzilla vs Kong. The movie will be the fourth entry into Warner Bros’ monster cinematic universe, which began with Gareth Edwards 2014 take on Godzilla, continued with 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, and will continue with next years Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which coincidentally had it’s first image released this week.

Now that I think about it, the monster universe has actually been pretty decent so far. I enjoyed Godzilla a lot, and Kong: Skull Island was and is a lot of fun, so that’s two out of two, which was more than Marvel could say when they first got started.

But the most important news this week, by far, and I don’t care what any of you have to say to the contrary, is clearly the announcement that District 9 writer/director Neil Blomkamp has signed on to tackle and all new RoboCop film.

Why should you care, I hear you ask? That RoboCop remake was God awful, I hear you say. Well, you’re not wrong. But here’s the thing, the new RoboCop won’t be in continuity with the remake, instead it’s going to be a sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 cult classic, and is based on a story idea by original writers, Ed Neumeir and Michael Miner. I’m quite excited about this one, as I like Blomkamp’s style and I was disappointed we didn’t get to see his Alien 5 movie, so perhaps this might be his chance at getting back into the mainstream. You never know…

But probably not.

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